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St
Nicholas, Twyford

St
Nicholas is bang on the main Norwich to Fakenham
road, but the hedges screen it so effectively
from the roaring traffic that you would not even
know it was there unless you thought to look. As
the Church of England retreats from public view,
this is exactly the kind of church that I expect
to come back to in thirty years time and find
surrounded by high brambles, as if it was
Sleeping Beauty's castle.

This church
is kept locked, and so it is now longer used for
anything other than the worship of the declining
congregation, and the hatches, matches and
dispatches - but there won't be many of those -
that are the modern core business of CofE PLC.

That said,
when I rang up to ask to borrow a key, the man who
answered the phone was extremely friendly and welcoming.
He even offered to bring the key to the church rather
than me go and get it, because, as he explained, by the
time he told me how to get there, he could be at the
church himself.

About
sixty East Anglian churches have towers on the
south side. This is one of them, but curiously it
is a post-Reformation red brick tower of the 18th
century, and I cannot think of another 18th
century south tower. Presumably it was built onto
the site of a porch. I don't think there was ever
a medieval south tower here; indeed, there is
circumstantial evidence that there was once a
west tower. The top of the current tower has a
bellcote on top. It is extremely attractive.

I had been
wanting to visit this church for some time for
Carol Myers, who produces the wholly excellent St Nicholas site, which
includes a gazeteer to every church in the world
dedicated to St Nicholas. One of the fun things
about taking photos for the St Nicholas site is
finding references to the Saint inside the
church, perhaps kitschy objects that you wouldn't
normally photograph - but there was nothing like
that here.

This is a
simple, homely, Norfolk village church, obviously once a
Norman church but extended eastwards without a break, so
there is no chancel arch. It reminded me a bit of Themelthorpe, a few miles off,
but Themelthorpe feels a much more lively church than
this one.

There is a
big square font on pillars, presumably from the 12th
century, and an attractive alabaster reredos. The remains
of the screen are pretty. The early 20th century glass in
the windows is not major, but the lancet containing an
image of Christ crowning St George (yes, really), is
worth a second glance.

And at
last I found a piece of St Nicholas ephemera - Twyford
has a display board, hidden at the back of the church,
which has a map on it, and the map pinpoints every single
church in the county dedicated to St Nicholas. I took it
out, dusted it down, and put it back on display. A
curious find indeed.